In the spring of 1980, the author was asked to prepare a catalogue of the Persian manuscripts preserved in the library of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. During preliminary stages of this work a remarkable manuscript came to light which is the subject of the present article. This is the personal horoscope of Iskandar Sultan, the grandson of Tīmūr (d. 807/1405). Iskandar ruled in Fars, South West Iran, for five years from 1409 to 1414. He is best known for his interest in the arts and sciences and for his patronage of manuscript production.

It is known that the word erimmatu refers to an ornament of beads which is worn round the neck. It sometimes appears in medical prognostic texts, and it is here proposed that such passages refer to a skin lesion, although Labat was unable to identify the actual disease.

The ZÁ.NUNUZ.MEŠ (erimmatu) is closely associated in these texts with general symptoms of illness and may well be an integral part of the disease. Although it is never actually referred to as a disease, its close association with descriptive terms used in omen texts concerned with the exta, does suggest an abnormal tissue. The description of the lesion affecting the region of the neck is characteristic of that which occurs in pellagra, and is referred to as the “necklace of Cajal”. A deficiency of the vitamin niacin in the diet causes pellagra. There is increased pigmentation, roughening and thickening of the skin, particularly in the exposed areas around the neck, on the backs of the hands and on the dorsum of the feet.

Along with a number of commemorative inscriptions adorning various edifices in Maṣyāf, al-Qadmūs and al-Kahf, the principal literary source which records the building activities of the Syrian Ismā‘īlīs in the Jabel Anṣarīya during the 12th and 13th centuries is the anecdotal biography of Rāshid al-dīn Sinān, completed, as its author, Abū Firās b. Jawshan al-Mayniqī states, in Shawwāl 724/Sept.—Oct. 1324. In this work reference is made to the reinforcement, under the instructions of Sinān, of the fortresses of al-'Ullayqa, al-Ruṣāfa and al-Khawābī. Mosques founded at al-Mayniqa and al-Kahf apparently in the period following Sinān's death in 1193 are also mentioned. Finally, the story is told of the building after the Mongol withdrawal from Maṣyāf in late 1260 of a mashhad on a mountain top not far from the town. It was dedicated to the memory of Sinān and marked the spot from which this most famous of the Syrian Ismā‘īlī leaders had observed the siege of Qal‘at Maṣyāf by Saladin in 1176. By the second half of the 13th century the site of Sinān‘s encampment during the siege had become associated in the minds of the Ismā‘īlīs with certain miraculous occurrences brought about through the agency of Sinān and sufficient in their impact to persuade Saladin to desist from further hostility and sue for peace.

The rare Vedic word urvárī is in the dictionary of Böhtlingk and Roth (BR) given the meaning ‘Werg’, i.e. ‘tow, oakum’. This meaning is repeated in a number of subsequent dictionaries, e.g. in the first edition of Monier-Williams' Sanskrit dictionary (1872: ‘tow, fibres drawn out of the distaff’), in the Sanskrit- English dictionary of C. Cappeller (London, 1891), in V. S. Apte's Practical Sanskrit Dictionary (2nd edition, Bombay, 1912), and more recently in the Sanskrit-German dictionary of K. Mylius (Leipzig, 1975). It also appears in other works of reference, such as Whitney's Sanskrit Grammar (1171c) and Altindische Grammatik of Wackernagel-Debrunner (Vol. II, 2, p. 909). On the other hand in the Vachaspatya, A Comprehensive Sanskrit Dictionary by Taranatha Tarkavachaspati (Vol.1, Calcutta, 1873) the meaning given, with reference to AV 10, 4, 21, is completely different: ādhikyaprāptā strī.

The aim of this study is to show how Zoroastrian elements have survived into the 19th and 20th centuries around the higher reaches of the Amu Darya (ancient Oxus), a river now forming the boundary between Afghanistan and the U.S.S.R, whose basin is mostly inhabited by East Iranian Tajiks and related Pamiri groups – that is, approximately Bactria of old. Although Islam reached Balkh as early as the 7th century, such Zoroastrian survivals should not perhaps be too surprising, since Bactria was one of the ancient homelands of Zoroastrianism, and was among those regions which laid legendary claim to Zoroaster's own ministry. Unfortunately although the history of Zoroastrianism in Western Iran during Achaemenid, Parthian and Sasanian times is fairly well known, its fortunes in the earlier East Iranian centres like Bactria are much less clear. A few literary sources like Strabo can be supplemented by gradually emerging archaeological evidence. Nevertheless Zoroastrian remains in Bactria are meagre when compared with Buddhist ones from there, or with Zoroastrian cultic materials found further afield in Central Asia/East Iran, i.e. from ancient Sogdia, Chorasmia and Margiana.

The Topkapisaray Museum has long displayed part of the great collection of royal robes of the Ottoman House. Most of these are kaftans with floral patterns related to those of other fabrics of their periods or to Iznik tile designs. Some have geometric patterns among which are the robe assigned to Murad III (Archive 2/3770) which is unique. Unlike some attributions, this is one that is probable although this garment has not, to my knowledge, been the subject of published research. Although it is labelled as a kaftan, a glance shows it to be nothing of the kind. Sevin recognised this error and calls it a kapamasi or mantle and even a cloak, but it has sleeves and could be worn as a gown.

I would suggest that it is a muraqqa‘a or khirqa, which was the patched garment candidates wore when they were newly admitted to the Khalwatī path among the Sufi orders after three years novitiate. It was the symbol of the new brother's renunciation of worldiness and worldly goods.

The following glossary contains all words which appeared in ‘The Wanetsi Connexion, Part I’ (JRAS I, 1984, 54–76), as well as many words from LZ, LZM, and M, where something new can be said. No locus is given for a very few very common loanwords (mainly from NP). The alphabetical order disregards vowels, as usual. Pashto cognates are given mainly to facilitate reference to EVP, and to underline the differences between Pashto and Wanetsi. Note that h is very unstable in all positions in Wan, and that Pš words ending in (for standard -áy) are Kākaṛī forms.

Ādurbād, son of Māraspand, is a well known figure in the history of Zoroastrianism. The historical Ādurbād appears to have played an important rôle in the religious controversies during the reign of Šābūr II (309–379) and in the suppression of Manichaeism. The third book of the Dēnkard contains the ten precepts with which Ādurbād contradicted the teachings of Mānī and which are likely enough to be authentic. Besides these, we possess a good number of wise sayings attributed to him in various Middle Persian books and, more sparsely, in Arabic adab collections, and whose historicity seems more open to doubt. In particular we have two fairly extensive Middle Persian works attributed to him, the Handarz ī Ādurbād ī Māraspandān (HA) or “Admonitions of Ādurbād”, and the work entitled Wāzag ī ēwcand ī Ādurbād ī Māraspandān (WE) or “Some sayings of Ādurbād”, as well as an Arabic text, Mawā'iẓ Ādhurbādh, included in Miskawayh's anthology of wisdom literature of the Arabs, Persians, Greeks, and other nations.

“Grubbing into the Pashto dialects of Baluchistan would not be labour lost”. So runs a dictum from Sir Denys Bray's 1911 Baluchistan census report, quoted in LSI, X, 112. Sir Denys was certainly right, and it is a pity that work since then has been so limited and so tardy. The first serious grubbing was done by Morgenstierne only in 1929, when amongst much else he “discovered” Wanetsi, a speech which had been characterized by Sir Denys as “jarring gibberish” in the Report. (It is indeed unfortunate that the short extract of the Prodigal Son story supplied to Sir George Grierson for the LSI (loc. cit.) by Bray (below, p. 63) is indeed partly gibberish.) Wanetsi is in fact a difficult language of which to obtain authentic specimens, on account of the fact that its speakers themselves regard it as only “corrupted Pashto”, and are forever “correcting” themselves when speaking to an outsider.

Was there a Xia Dynasty? By the mid-nineteen thirties, the works of Henri Maspero and other scholars in the West and of Gu Jiegang and his compatriots in China had clearly established the originally mythological character of the founder of the Xia Dynasty (traditionally ca. 2200–1760 B.C.) and of the rulers who preceded him in traditional Chinese historiography. The excavations near Anyang of late Shang palaces, tombs and inscribed oracle bones had also established the authenticity of the Shang Dynasty which followed the Xia, or at least of the latter part of it. In 1936, Chen Mengjia published an article in which he related the Xia king list to the Shang and argued that the two periods were the same. For the next forty years, the question of the authenticity of the Xia was left largely in abeyance although most scholars did continue to assume that the Xia Dynasty, which was hereditary like the Shang, would some day be authenticated by archaeological excavation.

When books on Hinduism begin with a discussion of the Indus Valley civilization, one of the main postulates to illustrate the influence of the Indus upon Hinduism is that Śiva originates from this prehistoric civilization. The postulate is based on three types of objects found in the Mature Harappan context (c. 2500–1900 B.C.) which strongly evoke the personality of the great Hindu god. These objects are phallic emblems and baetyls, seals, and some sculptures. As to the first, conical shaped objects of stone, shell, faience, paste or clay were found in the Indus cities and an outpost, and these emblems are found to bear considerable resemblance to the later conventionalized Śivz-lingas. So too the Indus ring stones are likened to the later yonī-rings, objects representing the female organ and located at places holy to the Goddess (her pīṭhas). Regarding the second, a seal from Mohenjo-daro portraying a central figure with ithyphallic and tricephalic features, seated in yogic fashion and surrounded by four animals is identified as a proto-Śiva figure whose paśupati nature is already recognized. This famous seal, Mohenjo-daro seal No. 420, incorporates the most extensive range of symbols shared by a set of Indus seals, which are, on that account, all thought to exhibit proto-Śaivite symbolism. Lastly, two sculptures are suggestive evidence that the Indus region visualized something akin to the aspects that later comprise Śiva's nature. As such, a small, broken stone sculpture from Harappa is conjectured, when its missing limbs are reconstructed by modern scholarship, to assume a dancer's pose; in consequence the piece is understood as evocative of a Śiva Natarāja.

There has been much debate about the origin of the Chakma tribe of the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the Muslim names of the Chakma chiefs of the 18th century have added to it. According to the Chakmas their ancestors were kshatriyas of north Indian origin, who invaded Arakan towards the end of the 14th century, settled there and intermarried with the local people. But there is no credible evidence to corroborate this story and all the modern writers on the subject consider it to be a myth. Hutchinson points out that the Indian kshatriya link was forged during Kalindi Rani's time in the 19th century when Hindu influence was at its highest in her court and the worship of Śiva and Kali crept into their ritual. The Chakmas are not the only Arakanese tribe to claim descent from the ancient warrior class of north India. The accepted idea amongst the Maghs is that their ancestors were kshatriya princes of Magadha. The Burmese are undoubtedly a Mongolian race; yet their traditions hark back to India and not to China. “Their chronicles read as if they were descended from Buddha's clansmen and lived in Upper India”.

On 17 May 1823, two months after the founding of the Royal Asiatic Society, a selection of designs for the emblems of the Society was laid before Council. These had been prepared by the members Thomas Daniell, RA (1749—1840) and his nephew William Daniell, RA (1769—1837), both of whom were noted for their drawn and engraved views of India. On a single card which remains in the Society's possession, the Daniells submitted four designs for a seal of circular form. The first of these depicts a richly caparisoned elephant carrying a howdah of two compartments. A turbaned attendant sits before the howdah, holding an ankus in his right hand and a small whip in the left (Plate Ia). A second design (Plate Ib) shows a dense grove of banyan-trees beneath which stand three figures in Indian dress. The third drawing (Plate Id) depicts an Indian harrowing with an ox. In the background there is a palm tree and a view of the Jantar Mantar (astronomical observatory) erected in 1710 at Delhi by the Rajput Maharajah and astronomer, Jai Singh II of Jaipur. The fourth design (Plate Ie) shows an Indian ploughing. The background in this last drawing remains largely unfinished.